Display posts from previous

Sort by

mikeh wrote:
In all that, you never actually say what humors go with what suits, so as to see if your idea works.

First of all, the SB is still a card game and the pips/courts primary purpose is to provide an ordinal value; looking for an explication of a element/humour in each pip or court card was undoubtedly beyond the program and artist’s abilities…but there should be enough attributes littered throughout a given suit to identify the element/humor. I’m going to leave Swords for last as it appears the most arcane to me.

Having stated that caveat, the source I am proposing is Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535); his de occulta philosophia (c. 1509 to 1510) is a "systematic exposition of ... Ficinian spiritual magic” (I. P. Couliano in Hidden Truths, 1987: 114). Below is a schematic of his "Scale of the Number Four", in Book II, chapter 7 of de occulta philosophia

Agrippa matrix.jpg (17.82 KiB) Viewed 4565 times

COINS: The Ace of Coins features melancholy itself and an Atlas-like Putto (Fortitude); the coin itself is the earth being held aloft. The naked/pregnant four of coins, blacksmith/metallurgist of the six of coins, the nude Promethean figure (chained to the earth in the myth) with eagle in 7, bones on the earth in 8, all point to EARTH.

STAVES: The Ace of Staves is a Herculean club (related to the Herculean theme in the Ace of Coins) held up in the air where the cuirass’s head should be (the similar ace of swords, by contrast, has half of its shaft buried amongst the entwined bodies holding it); the 3 of staves is the epitome of air – a winged head floating in the air (the similar 3 and 4 of swords do not have these wings); 9 of staves are borne above the water in the air (perhaps water is shown as evaporation into the air is a basic fact of nature’s processes).

CUPs: . The Ace of Cups’s first putto is practically a symbol of Aquarius, pouring water from a jug; the 9 of cups features a triton, the page of cups’ urn has a spout for pouring a liquid. Coppa begs the inference of liquid – this suit has to be water.

SWORDS: The King of Swords has Apollo’s animal, the griffin, four times – clearly linking the suit to light/fire (already known via Dante’s use of the griffin pulled chariot), but the suit sign of swords easily ties into the virtue of Justice, especially as Venice’s own emblem featured the upright sword held by a allegory of the city as seen on the Doge’s palace itself:

The two entwined figures about the Ace of Swords might also be related to the same emblem of Venice where two figures, “discord” and “sedition” (“Notes on Italian Medals”, G.F. Hill, The Burlington Magazine, Volume 18, 1911, 13-20, p. 20), are flattened beneath Justice. On the ace of swords one of the men is red and looking outwards while the other one seems frozen in an odd posture, with arm bent around the sword and his eyes closed. The negative figures figures on Venice’s emblem may have had their specific poses from a negative “hieroglyph” in Horapollo: “81. The Rapacious and idle man: When they wish to indicate a rapacious and idle man, they draw a crocodile with an ibis feather on his head. For if you should touch a crocodile with the feather of an ibis, you should stun him into immobility.” (Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, Tr. George Boas, 1993: 89).

Rapacious and Idle Man.jpg (22.92 KiB) Viewed 4565 times

In fact one of Ficino’s protégés, Poliziano wrote a treatise on Osiris in his Miscellany in 1489 and had already given lectures in Venice and Verona in the early 1480s on the son of Isis and Osiris based on Plutarch, inspiring Ermolao Barbaro the Younger to translate that work of Plutarch into Latin. (Karl Giehlow, The Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance, Translated with an Introduction & Notes by Robin Raybould.1915/2015: 151-152). Also note that Horapallo “was certainly known to Marsilio who, engaged at that time in preparing an edition of Plotinus, makes here an explicit refenrce to the author of the Hieroglyphica. On the other hand, the Horapallo was known to Demetrios Chalcondylas who in 1486 had returned Filelfo’s codex to the work to the Medicean Library.” (ibid, 156-157). To the point: the themes I am reading into the SB would have been very current in both Venice and in the writings of Ficino.

Perhaps the most enigmatic card of the swords is the two, where an upright man has his hand around the horn(s) of another man with noticeable pubic hairs (I,e,, a reference to sex) on his knees, while birds or insects swarm upwards in the background. Like the Panfilo and Marsyas, I believe this too can be traced to Boccacio, which Ficino would have known all too well. Boccacio, in his Genealogy of the Gods, quotes Ovid in describing Bacchus as “you are considered the most beautiful in the high heaven, then you appear without horns.” (V.25.6, tr. Solomon, 2011: 707). No longer the earthly leader of maenads, he has become a fiery allegory of transformation in Boccacio’s hands (and his allegorizing predecessors). In Ficino’s schema, purgating one’s material-ness, here indicated by Bacchus’ horns, is closely related to the Orphic cult which fascinated Ficino as being connected to the prisca theologia. Boccacio goes on to relate that the process of growing vine and wine fermentation are what is behind the allegories of Jupiter’s fiery immolation of Semele and the rebirth of the then horned god in fiery Jupiter (V.25.22, p.717). Boccacio then gives us an idea as why insects would appear in this trump featuring a horned man, in the context of the same immolating heat:

Some again also add to the fiction that even though he [Bacchus] was dismembered and then buried, he rose again whole. I think that this must be understood in that after many imbibings, the heat of the wine produces small insects, and the combined result is drunkenness; from this it is quite clear that Bacchus lives and does something. About this Albericus said:
’Bacchus should be understood as the spirit of the world which, although it is divided into members throughout the bodies of the world, nevertheless seems to reintegrate itself when emerging from bodies, reforming itself, always remaining unique and the same, not suffering its single nature to be subdivided.’
He says this. But I think this Bacchus of Albericus must be understood as Macrobius’ sun, to whom Macrobius transfers the divinities of all the gods.( V.25.24, p. 719)

Again, I am proposing a Ficiean take on Macrobius' commentary to the Dream of Scipio as the basis for understanding the SB, so these are relvant lines in Boccacio.

Mikeh wrote:
I don't know what else is Ficinian about the SB. The ascent through the planets is not Ficinian at all; it is in Macrobius, Dante, the cosmographs, and many other places.

More on Ficino/SB specifics in a separate post, but otherwise….wow.
“Ficino owned a copy of the Dream [of Scipio] as recorded in Macrobius’s commentary on it from the very early in his studies [MS Ricc.581, , from 1457 or earlier]….the Dream itself, which Ficino could read in Macrobius long before he learned Greek, was an important text for him, in its affirmation of the principle of the immortality of ther soul….” Valery Rees, “Ciceronian Echoes in Marsilio Ficino” in Cicero Refused to Die: Ciceronian Influence through the Centuries, 2013: 157

There are 19 references to Macrobius, implicit or otherwise, in the I Tatti index to Ficino’s Platonic Theology (6.1.3, 6.1.5, 6.1.6, 8.13.1, 9.1.3, 10.2.13, 13.4.15, 15.2.3, 15.3.2, 17.2.10, 17.2.11, 17.2.12, 17.2.13, 17.2.15, 18.1.12, 18.4.7, 18.5.2, 18.5.3, 18.9.3), but this one should suffice to show just how far off base you are on Ficino:

“From what part of heaven do they [souls] descend? Principally from Cancer, according to the Platonists [such as Macrobius from whom he is taking this], and they suppose they ascend in turn through Capricorn, opposite Cancer; hence they call the first gateway of men, the second the gateway of the gods.” (PT, 18.5.2, 2006: 113). Ficino goes on to list the gifts imparted by the various planets and ends by saying, souls “after many centuries they descend at length towards the elements and pass in the fire and air a demonic life an on earth a human and bestial life; and then they return at length by similar degrees towards things supernal.” (18.6.3, p. 115)

Mikeh wrote:
Somehow I think it is at least as relevant to ask who was expert enough on Roman Republican history to have thought of all these people. Or was it common knowledge among humanists then?

Marco already provided a likely pre-Renaissance source popular in the middle ages, Paulus Orosius: Historiarum Adversum Paganos in which books 4, 5 and 6 refer to the 18 Roman figures. But considering that what one mostly had for entertainment was history and the Good Book, one should not be surprised at how conversant even a moderately educated merchant would have been with Roman history, particularly in Italy where cities and their nobles were tracing their origins back to the Romans.

In this context, consider the somewhat famous letter of 1417 from the renowned Venetian humanist Francesco Barbaro to Santo Venier, podesta of Zara on the Dalamtian coast, encouraging Venier to follow the classical exemplars “which if our citizens hold before themselves in administering the republic, by that relfection upon illustrious men, they shall become more prudent and capable” (Margaret L. King, Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance,1986: 42-43). Barbaro sent along Cicero’s letter to Quintus on the administration of public office, telling him to read it daily and reflect upon it.

And yes, this is a Venier from the same family that would have a descendent mark his coat of arms on a deck of cards we call the Sola Busca, featuring Roman exempli.

You misunderstand me on Macrobius, Phaeded. I wasn't disputing that Ficino knew Macrobius. Of course he did. Everybody did. That's what I was trying o say. It doesn't tie the deck to Ficino. I saw nothing in particular in the quote you gave from Ficino that points to his particular reading of Macrobius as opposed to others'. If there is, please explain.

On the pips, thanks. Now we have more things to discuss.

Your observations on those particular Cups and Swords are good. I am not convinced about the crocodile; I will re-read Hill's essay; I hadn't made the connection. I liked your quote from Boccaccio on Bacchus. Most of the cups don't have anything to do with water on the cards. But maybe they don't have to, and we ignore the ones floating in the air.Likewise for Swords; the connections are remote, but maybe swords were connected with fire in themselves.

But then:
Phaeded wrote:

COINS: The Ace of Coins features melancholy itself and an Atlas-like Putto (Fortitude); the coin itself is the earth being held aloft. The naked/pregnant four of coins, blacksmith/metallurgist of the six of coins, the nude Promethean figure (chained to the earth in the myth) with eagle in 7, bones on the earth in 8, all point to EARTH.

Marco has a very convincing analysis of the court cards here, pointing to SANGUINITY.. On the Ace of Coins: Atlas held the sky, not the earth. Nobody who understood the deck would have that particular misconception. Anyway, who it is depends on who fits the words on the banner. That's not Atlas. Whoever it is, he's the triumphant one, not the melancholic, and he's optimistic, i.e. sanguine. Also, I didn't know that fortitude is connected with melancholia. Melancholia is ennervating. If two putti out of three are humors, probably the one in between them is, too, and it's not choler (which might be connected with fortitude, a warlike virtue). The card looks sanguine to me. On the 3 of coins, the coins are in the air, in the sense of being lifted off the earth. It is the same theme as the middle putto of the Ace of Coins, bearing a heavy burden triumphantly.The fat lady on the 4 is a sign of abundance, i.e. optimism, sanguinity; so is pregnancy. The 6 has a guy punching indentations on a sheet of metal, of unclear symbolism, while the coins are up in the air. I am not saying the card is related to the element air.I am just saying that it is as good an interpretation as any, and so none are worth much. On the 8, likewise the coins are hanging from a basket above the earth. On the 7, the coins even have wings, and the falcon or eagle is a typical symbol of air and of sanguinity. The guy on that card doesn't look Promethian to me, just trying to adjust something, like a valve. I was interested in the chains. Where are they?

Phaeded wrote:

STAVES: The Ace of Staves is a Herculean club (related to the Herculean theme in the Ace of Coins) held up in the air where the cuirass’s head should be (the similar ace of swords, by contrast, has half of its shaft buried amongst the entwined bodies holding it); the 3 of staves is the epitome of air – a winged head floating in the air (the similar 3 and 4 of swords do not have these wings); 9 of staves are borne above the water in the air (perhaps water is shown as evaporation into the air is a basic fact of nature’s processes).

Again, read Marco, on the symbolism ub the Staves courts, which is all Sanguinity. I'm glad you at least say that the Ace of Coins is Herculean.Well, some things are up, other things are down, as on most of the cards. On the 3 of Staves, that putto looks melancholy. You would be, too, with three Staves stuck in your head. He will be victorious (the wreath, the wings), but not just now. That card seems to me an example where a couple of humors fit. On many staves, you can find symbols of various elements: the water on the 9 can't be explained away, it shows no sign of evaporating. There's also the fire on the 8, and a bent over, melancholy person on the 7, And several that don't have anything relating to these symbols.

I love looking at these cards for possible symbolism in the details, so your observations are welcome to me. It is possible that if there is some other reason for identifying the suits as you say, these interpretations fit. I agree that the Agrippa assignments make sense in general, and also your suit assignments. But two of the suits don't work in the SB courts, and don't get enough confirmation in the number cards.

I guess your point about Orosius is well taken, but I'd still like to know how you know every old family had a copy. Is there anything about the transmission of that book in the Renaissance and how well known it was.

Thanks for the reference to Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance,. That looks like a real treasure trove, and the top of my list of books to get, if by some reasonable means. I didn't know about it. When I look on WorldCat, I see no libraries coming up as having it, and a price of $150 from Brill. Merde!

mikeh wrote:
Thanks for the reference to Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance,. That looks like a real treasure trove, and the top of my list of books to get, if by some reasonable means. I didn't know about it. When I look on WorldCat, I see no libraries coming up as having it, and a price of $150 from Brill. Merde!

Well, it is "dated" - the original came out in 1915 in German and the English is not going to be in libraries for a while with a 2015 publishing date (I was getting a Google Books scan of some of the new translation but now can't find that - lucky Huck can read the original).

The bottom line on the pips/courts is that is a card game-derived system - there are not 10 or 14 degrees of the elements/humours - the latter are mapped onto the card game. And I admit that there are valid questions raised about the element/humours but there had to have been someone's system that was utilized and I find the Ficino-influenced Agrippa system the likeliest - not the much later French suit attributions unearthed by Ross.

Furthermore, some cards cannot be in any other suit; e.g., the Triton (9 of cups) has to be water, and water in turn has to be cups (a vessel of some sort at any rate). Ultimately the matrix's origins are the pre-Socratic 4 elements, so I do believe that is the priority that suits would be matched to. Humours are subsequent to the primeval elements.

And don't rule out the influence of Christianity on the SB, although contaminated by the prisca theologia of Ficino's worldview (IMO). Note the pearl hanging in front of the highest court card - King of Cups (and the pearl would also point to the element of water for this suit) - the pearl points towards Christian immortality; e.g., the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem in Revelations are pearls (awkwardly described in the English idiom as St. Peter’s "pearly gates"). What comes next is a post-mortem or dream vision one can adduce from Plato/Macrobius/Dante – one goes beyond the pearl gate and enters an Elysium like realm full of historical figures from the past. The first trump figure one encounters is placed in a mountainous landscape – the only one in the trumps with that feature – further denoting a border or new realm has been crossed into (e.g., Dante’s dark woods). I’ve already pointed out Dante’s invocation to Apollo with himself-as-Marsyas which the Mato is in this context (see earlier posts in this thread) – Marsyas is stripped of his skin which is metaphor of one having purgated the influences of the four elements on one soul so that it can enter this other realm inhabited by the dead.

One not restrict knowledge of Roman history to Orosius – there was the 15th century Livy revival, Sallust was quite popular, etc. Not to mention the plethora of translations of Plutarch’s biographies. Boccaccio of course provided the compilation of classical mythology, however emended by later humanists.

Ultimately there was an over-riding concern of early modern man (still in a medieval in mindset to a large degree) to feel connected to the origins of the world geographically and historically, hence you find several local urban histories where Creation is traced through biblical times, with a focus on the pivotal moment when the tower of Babylon dispersed humanity into the various countries of the world, and then, for Italians at least, Roman history up through the founding of their own city and recent events until the contemporary period , such as you find in Dati’s History of Florence. A companion piece would be Dati’s Sfera, which shows several graphic details of the Creation and development of the cosmos, including the four elements and planet and the coastlines of the Mediterranean connecting Florence to the Holy Land (with which they were eager to do maritime trade with, like the Venetians). A convenient and good on-line synopsis:

But, despite the late medieval framework, there is an attempt to understand the reasons whereby Nature governs. Note particularly octave I.34, where the closing lines stress the independence of “the soul [free of passions] that follows its nature,” thus separating man’s spiritual and corporeal beings. Constant reference is made to circles and spheres with an apotheosis to the sun, “more noble than any other star,” the light that illumines, the symbol of God (I.16). Biblical texts are frequently evoked, as in words citing times of famine and plenty, war and peace (Eccles. I.33), in an allusion to the Trinity (I.16), and in references similar to those found in medieval specula. For all its pious evocations and its Dante-like cosmology, one detects signs of rationalism. Concern with perfect forms and the natural order is proleptic of early Renaissance humanism, with roots in Plato’s Timaeus. The poem’s very focus on the sphere, most perfect of Euclidean geometric forms, is allied to that body representing the vault of heaven, and to the mathematical symbols through which God may be understood (Witttkower, 1949). Compare the Hermetic texts—particularly that of Nicolas of Cusa--which influenced Marsilio Ficino’s astrological philosophy. http://www.astropa.unipa.it/INSAPIII/Memsait/Miller.doc

And of course the SB begins and ends with ‘Sfera’. Some images of the Newberry’s Dati manuscript that I took (note the spelling of Nimrud as “Nebrotto”)

Holy Land and Mesopotamia featuring Tower of Babel.jpg (47.54 KiB) Viewed 4553 times

The Venetians plied the very same part of the Mediterranean where the death throes of the Roman Republic occurred – Pharsalia and Actium are not far from Greek islands controlled by Venice, Pompey was killed in Alexandria where Venice did business, etc. By inserting their coat of arms amongst the Romans and client kings into the SB trumps, a Venetian Patrician family was inserting themselves into the same geographical and historical space as their Roman predecessors. In the Somnium Scipionis sense, they were allegorically placing their Patrician’s gens among the Roman gens, presumably to learn from their triumphs and mistakes so as to avoid the collapse of their own far-flung Republic. And like Dati, the origins of Venice are implied in the date of the city’s founding – in this sense, the SB is very much like Dati’s Sfera project, but in the medium of cards.

mikeh wrote:
Thanks for the reference to Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance,. That looks like a real treasure trove, and the top of my list of books to get, if by some reasonable means. I didn't know about it. When I look on WorldCat, I see no libraries coming up as having it, and a price of $150 from Brill. Merde!

Well, it is "dated" - the original came out in 1915 in German and the English is not going to be in libraries for a while with a 2015 publishing date (I was getting a Google Books scan of some of the new translation but now can't find that - lucky Huck can read the original).

Yes, that is what I meant, Huck. Now I just have to figure out how to convert it to OCR format. Then I can run it through Google Translate. I used to know enough German grammar to go from there. That would be a lot of work, but perhaps worth it. Meanwhile I will look at the pages for interesting discussions worth focusing on. Thanks.

I have little to quarrel with in your last post, Phaeded. Just one thing:

there was the 15th century Livy revival, Sallust was quite popular, etc. Not to mention the plethora of translations of Plutarch’s biographies.

Plutarch's biographies had only a few of the SB heroes. I don't know about Livy and Sallust.

On the issue of who is in the 2 of Coins,there is an interesting discussion in Gnaccolini that I skipped over. Also, some of the faces on other cards seem to be modeled on coins with portraits of Roman emperors. It is not a question of the artist actually having the coins to copy from; probably there was some sort of imprint on paper or sculpture ("una mediazione grafica o scultorea", footnote 105). But it does raise the question of who we know that collected Roman coins. I read somewhere that Ercole d'Este did and that he sent Boiardo out places to get them for him on occasion. Probably many people did.

In the case of the 2 of Coins, a Baldassare d'Este medallion seems to be the closest match: the hat goes on the bottom figure and the face on the top figure. The medallion is of Ercole I d'Este. The significance of the top medallion, of Augustus, is that the headpiece shows the classical style which is exemplified in the laurel leaves on the card. For the other, she proposes Michele Savonarola, as I've said. She says, with references, that he experimented with alchemy in hopes of finding a cure for the plague.

Then there are three more coins, which she puts next to the respective cards. Tiberius goes with Deo Tauro VII. It seems to me that the face on that coin (Tiberius) also matches the lower face on the 2 of Coins. She assigns Claudius to Catone XIII.

And Nero to the Seven of Swords. It seems to me that Nero also matches the Mato.

mikeh wrote:Yes, that is what I meant, Huck. Now I just have to figure out how to convert it to OCR format. Then I can run it through Google Translate. I used to know enough German grammar to go from there. That would be a lot of work, but perhaps worth it. Meanwhile I will look at the pages for interesting discussions worth focusing on. Thanks.

What do you think, that the text might contain? Or what do you think, that's interesting?

It's about some specific problems with this Habsburger monster called "Ehrenpforte" ...

210 woodcuts with the size 41 × 37 cm were in the plan. 137 were realized.The work stopped with the death of Maximilian. In 1526 a version was printed.

In the relevant detail it is talked of the inclusion of Horapollo objects. But the material seems to be not complete. Possibly all extant material is given on the pictures (?), which are not very much. There's the suspicion (or hope), that Dürer (or the relevant engraver, only 2 extant pictures are accepted to be done by Dürer) painted all Horapollo objects, which possibly might be found in the future.

mikeh wrote:
I have little to quarrel with in your last post, Phaeded. Just one thing:

there was the 15th century Livy revival, Sallust was quite popular, etc. Not to mention the plethora of translations of Plutarch’s biographies.

Plutarch's biographies had only a few of the SB heroes. I don't know about Livy and Sallust.

The basics are easily found in Wiki (but there are in-depth studies of the Renaissance reception of each available).

Livy

Ab Urbe Condita Libri—often shortened to Ab Urbe Condita—is a monumental history of ancient Rome in Latin begun sometime between 27 and 25 BC[1] by the historian Titus Livius, known in English as Livy. The Latin title can be literally translated as "Books since the city's founding". It is often referred to in English, however, as The History of Rome. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c. 753 BC, to Livy's own times in the reign of the emperor Augustus….The Renaissance was a time of intense revival; the population discovered that Livy's work was being lost and large amounts of money changed hands in the rush to collect Livian manuscripts. The poet Beccadelli sold a country home for funding to purchase one manuscript copied by Poggio.[14] Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V launched a search for the now missing books. Laurentius Valla published an amended text initiating the field of Livy scholarship. Dante speaks highly of him in his poetry.

Sallust [his influence was rather large in the quattrocento]
Sallust's account of the Catiline conspiracy (De coniuratione Catilinae or Bellum Catilinae) and of the Jugurthine War (Bellum Iugurthinum) have come down to us complete, together with fragments of his larger and most important work (Historiae), a history of Rome from 78 to 67 BC,… In the Middle Ages Sallust's works were often used in schools to teach Latin…. In the XIIIth century Sallust's passage about expansion of the Roman Republic (Cat. 7) was cited and interpreted by theologian Thomas Aquinas and scholar Brunetto Latini.[48] During the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance Sallust's works began to influence political thought in Italy. Among many scholars and historians interested in Sallust most notable are Leonardo Bruni, Coluccio Salutati and Niccolo Machiavelli.[49] Petrarch also highly praised Sallust, though he primarily appreciated his style and moralization.

As for coinage…

I think the SB 2 of coins are simply “types” – classical and contemporary, with those small Roman-nosed profiles fitting any number of comparables (the latter may as well be Dante). However, as to who collected coins – it seems Bernardo Bembo did, who I am proposing as the primary conduit of Ficino philosophy into Venice. He might also explain why Nero was the only inclusion from the imperial period into the SB, per the identification of him as the sitter in this Memling painting holding a coin of Nero’s:

[331]….the most interesting proposal, which has found support albeit with reservations, was advanced by Dirk de Vos (in Bruges 1994, p. 94, n.3), who noted that the palm and laurel were part of the impresa of Berardo Bembo (1433-1519), as seen, for instance, on the reverse of the [da Vinci] portrait of Ginerva de’ Benci, the object of Bembo’s platonic love (Fletcher 1989). Bembo, a Venetian humanist and diplomat, served from 1471 to 1474 as envoy of the Republic of Venice to the court of Charles the Bold, where he would have met Memling and come to appreciate his work (Giannetto 1985, pp121-31). According to Marcantonio Michiel (2000, pp 30-31), the Bembo family owned a ‘quadretto in due portelle’ (small diptych) in Padua, with images of John the Baptist (with the same provence as the present portrait; see Campell and Syson in London 2008-9, p. 103) and the Madonna ‘de man de Zuan Memglino, lanno 1470’ (by the hand of Hans Memling in the year 1470). Taking these clues a step further, Barbara Lane (2009, p. 258) pointed to the facial resemblance between the Antwerp sitter and that in Giovanni Bellini’s Portrait o a Man in Hampton Court, which alledgedly shows Bernardo’s son Pietro, but this suggestion is too speculative to provide additional support for the identification of Memling’s sitter as Bernardo….[332] the portrait would more likely have been painted for a humanist-educated collector, sesterce with likeness of Nero being among the most coveted and valuable collectibles for humansists (Cunnally 19999, pp35, 160 n. 26; Lane 2009, p. 258). Nero, a brutal tyrant, was a signal figure for humanists because of his interest in the arts and the great craftmanshiop of his coins. Moreover, from a humanist point of view there was a moral benefit to considering negative models such as Nero: the exempla vitii, like the exempla virtutis, offered instructive insights into human nature (Cunnally, 1999, p. 37)….The laurel, the plant signyfing a poet’s fame, should probably be understood in this context a well. Apart from the single laurel leaves on the parapet, the coin shos Nero’s head decorated with a triumphal laurel wreath….If we tentatively associate the work with Bernandro Bembo and consequently assume it was painted between 1471 and 1474, another interesting connection is suggested: when Bembo ws recalled from Flanders in 1475 and appointed ambassador to Florence, the portrait could have been seen by Botticelli, whose Portrait of a Man Holding a Medal of Cosimo de’ Medici, dated about 1475 (Galleria degli Uffizi, Floence) may well have been inspired by it (Nuttall 2005, pp 80-81). (Dagmar Korbacher, 331-332, “Catalogue 142, Portrait of a man with a golden coin” in The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini, edited by Keith Christiansen, Stefan Weppelmann, 2011).

In fact one of Ficino’s protégés, Poliziano wrote a treatise on Osiris in his Miscellany in 1489 and had already given lectures in Venice and Verona in the early 1480s on the son of Isis and Osiris based on Plutarch, inspiring Ermolao Barbaro the Younger to translate that work of Plutarch into Latin. (Karl Giehlow, The Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance,

I am very interested in the influence of Plutarch's Moralia, including his essay on Isis and Osiris as well as the one on the apparent face in the orb of the moon, on the the design of certain tarot images in certain places (especially, the Cary Sheet) and the interpretation of these designs. If you can find what Giehlow says on this subject, I'd be much obliged. Also I want to know more about Poliziano's work in this area (Plutarch and the subjects he wrote about). I knew he was an expert on Roman history (and hence of interest on the Sola-Busca) but not that he wrote and lectured on Osiris and (I assume) Horus. And the general subject of the diffusion of Horapollo in the quatrocento is of interest.

Phaeded: I don't doubt that Livy and Salust were widely read in the Renaissance. My concern was whether they talk about all these Repubican heroes. I know Plutarch doesn't by half, but I don't know about the other two.

I don't think that Gnaccolini's idea that the 2 of Coins reflects extant portraits of Ercole can be dismissed with a wave of the hand toward Dante. Dante's portraits are all quite distinctive and similar; while they have some similarity to the one in the 2 of Coins, it is not Dante (look on Google Images). It is much closer to Ercole than Dante. However, Dante was always shown with laurel leaves. That casts doubt on Gnaccolini's idea, and yours, that the figure is meant to represent someone from the ancient world. Could it just be someone the designer wants to give laurels to.

What you said about Barnardo Bembo as a coin collector was interesting, and thanks very much for the supporting data. The Nero coin was excellent. That coin is a closer match to the 7 of Swords than the one that Gnaccolini used!

But definitely not to the Mato (which I but not Gnaccolini had surmised).

mikeh wrote:Huck, what interested me in the Giehlow work was what Phaeded said:

In fact one of Ficino’s protégés, Poliziano wrote a treatise on Osiris in his Miscellany in 1489 and had already given lectures in Venice and Verona in the early 1480s on the son of Isis and Osiris based on Plutarch, inspiring Ermolao Barbaro the Younger to translate that work of Plutarch into Latin. (Karl Giehlow, The Humanist Interpretation of Hieroglyphs in the Allegorical Studies of the Renaissance,

I am very interested in the influence of Plutarch's Moralia, including his essay on Isis and Osiris as well as the one on the apparent face in the orb of the moon, on the the design of certain tarot images in certain places (especially, the Cary Sheet) and the interpretation of these designs. If you can find what Giehlow says on this subject, I'd be much obliged. Also I want to know more about Poliziano's work in this area (Plutarch and the subjects he wrote about). I knew he was an expert on Roman history (and hence of interest on the Sola-Busca) but not that he wrote and lectured on Osiris and (I assume) Horus. And the general subject of the diffusion of Horapollo in the quatrocento is of interest.

mikeh wrote:
I don't think that Gnaccolini's idea that the 2 of Coins reflects extant portraits of Ercole can be dismissed with a wave of the hand toward Dante. Dante's portraits are all quite distinctive and similar; while they have some similarity to the one in the 2 of Coins, it is not Dante (look on Google Images). It is much closer to Ercole than Dante. However, Dante was always shown with laurel leaves. That casts doubt on Gnaccolini's idea, and yours, that the figure is meant to represent someone from the ancient world. Could it just be someone the designer wants to give laurels to.

Actually there are several quattrocento portraits of Dante without laurel leaves. The humanist/poet depicted in the SB two of coins would not have had that, while the classical exemplar would, because the former – in the lower/under position – was to emulate the latter in the more exalted position (already dead and crowned with laurel; e.g., Virgil). If Dante, this would be him untertaking his vision/journey - not already crowned as a poet laureate. I'm assuming the deck has a didactic quality and we are to assume the position of pupil, not teacher. The only really odd aspect is the slight smile (which makes it very un-Dantean - or even "un-quattrocento")- perhaps in contradistinction (almost as an antidote) to the melancholia represented on the preceding 1st card, Ace of Coins.

Although the small image is essentially a caricature, three details stick out besides the roman nose (that in itself is a stereotypical caricature of Roman/Italian-ness):
1. The sharp, long line of the chin.
2. The pointed chin extending out to almost the same depth of the nose; and
3. A sharp facial crease extending the nostril back towards the ear.

These details consistently lack in portraits of Ercole – his jowl line not only sags but his chin falls well short of the end of his nose; not with Dante in either case. The deep crease from the nostril feature is especially prevalent in the Dante tomb bas relief in Ravenna from 1483, notably paid for by none other than Bernardo Bembo when he was podesta there. Considering this example's connection to Venice and the year, extremely pertinent.

Below is the key to the composite image I’ve pasted below – note that many of them have been flipped horizontally for ease of comparison.
1. SB 2 of coins detail, 1491
2. Pietro Lombardo bas relief in Ravenna tomb of Dante, 1483.
3. Obverse medal of Ercole, c. 1493 (note the sunken eyes and “double chin” vs the long sharp chin line of the SB and Dante portraits)
4. Ercole, medal, 1471 – again note that the chin does not extend out to the length of the nose as is the case in the Dante portraits.
5. MS1040 in Biblio. Riccardiana, attr. Giovanni del Ponte, c. 1420
6. Botticelli, 1495
7. Fresco detail of Dante by Castagno, 1450